what place in the Lower 48 has the most interesting weather? (climate, tornadoes)

[dxiweodwo]

I would say the northern Plains (North Dakota, South Dakota, Northwestern Minnesota).

I mean, they have rapidly changing weather, lots of frontal systems that bring severe thunderstorms, and rapid temperature swings, blizzards, extreme cold, extreme heat, they have everything.


and nowhere else in the Lower 48 has more of a difference between extreme high temperature in summer, and extreme low in winter

how about you guys?

[Jammie]

DX, I have to agree with you. It does get interesting around here. So. Dak. also has the record for the biggest temp change and it happened within minutes. DaninEFG had found the incident I'm referring to, but again I can't remember exactly how it went.

I would actually have to add Montana and Wyoming to that list. They can have some pretty strange weather, too.

[Steve-o]

Id also agree, the Great Plains have extremely interesting weather.

[melissajo]

I live in SW MO. We have ridiculous weather down here. We have crazy ice storms, snow, etc in the winter. It is not uncommon to go a week or so without power in the winter due to ice...and I live in a pretty decent sized city. Our entire city was down last year for several days. Oh, and one day, in just 2 hours...the temp dropped over 60 degrees. My students came to school in shorts and left with temps in the high teens. It's been a while since we had a good snow (we got one average snowfall this year) but it has also been known to snow feet of snow here. Lord knows us Missouri people can't drive in it!! We have about 10 snow days a year. MO state law now says all schools must include a minimum of 6 in their calendar, because lord knows they will need them!

In the spring we have 70+ mile an hour wind with thunderstorms and tornadoes and baseball size hail. My car (which is garaged most of the time) has been victim of golf-baseball size hail 3 times this year. One more good storm and our brand new house is going to probably need its second replacement roof. Just a couple months ago an F4 tornado tore through town just a few miles south of my house and killed 14 people. Then comes summer, where it is 105 and HUMID. We count down the days until Fall....until it gets here and we remember that it brings tornado season all over again!

So we basically have

Ice season, tornado season, Tropical heat wave-people killing over due to heat stroke season , and then tornado season-part duex.

But I like it here. The weather keeps things interesting!

[LordBalfor]

Anywhere on the plains (as mentioned) will likely have the most varied weather in a given location (over the course of a year). The Pacific Northwest has the most variation at any one moment (over a broader area at any given moment) since the Cascades divide Washington and Oregon in half giving each half a very different climate than the other (desert vs rainforest) and of course the higher mountains in the region have glaciers (so lots of snow and artic-like weather there obviously).

Ken

[Packersnut21]

I find it kind of funny anywhere I go I hear, "well (this insert any city)weather is so unpredictable." isn't that weather in general?

[Alphaman]

I`d go with Florida because of the thunderstorms and hurricanes/tornado's

And the mid west because of the super cell storms and powerful tornado`s.

[MJ1986]

Jammie, it was in Spearfish... Here's a copy/paste from a Wikipedia article...
Spearfish holds the world record for the fastest temperature change. On January 22, 1943, at about 7:30am MST, the temperature in Spearfish, SD was −4 °F (−20 °C). The chinook kicked in, and two minutes later the temperature was 45 °F (7 °C) above zero. The 49-degree rise (27 °C) in two minutes set a world record that still holds. By 9:00am, the temperature had risen to 54 °F (12 °C). Suddenly, the chinook died down and the temperature tumbled back to −4 °F (−20 °C). The 58-degree drop (32 °C) took only 27 minutes.

[Jammie]

MJ, thank you so much for posting that. Actually, I didn't realize it was a world's record.